Articles

Take stress out for a walk!
Submitted by CDR Tina Lankford

The demands of daily life take a toll on our bodies both mentally and physically. Depression and stress are common indicators of being overwhelmed. While we cannot eliminate stress, we can better adapt to it by learning to recognize and control our exposure to it, as well as our response to daily stressors. Common physical responses may include: headaches, muscle tension, stomach ache, dry mouth, rapid heart rate, fatigue, colds, and teeth grinding. Common personality responses include: irritability, anxiety, forgetfulness, confusion, short temper, overly emotional, withdrawal from relationships, and apathy.

Seeking the outdoors to take your break is important if it is the best place to find a stress-free environment. Sometimes, on-site fitness centers still have too many work-related thoughts for some people. If that’s the case, ask the staff at any your workplace fitness center to provide you with walking or jogging routes in nearby neighborhoods, or ask those who you know walk at lunch.

Most of us need to improve our ability to take small breaks at work. It is suggested to take a break every 90 minutes, as that is considered a natural work-break period. Ten-minute work breaks every 90 minutes may be as simple as conducting business in person (rather than by e-mail) with co-workers in the same building, refilling your glass of water and stretching, or using the time to exercise (e.g., climbing stairs or taking a brisk walk outside). Three exercise breaks, for a total 30 minutes, satisfies the minimum for health benefits.

Small changes such as removing yourself from the routine home or office environment, and setting aside personal time for activities or people you enjoy the most is a strategy that can be used whenever needed. Meeting and talking with a friend, volunteering for charity, improving a skill, spending time on a hobby, and practicing your faith are examples that can provide a positive balance.

Have a long-term strategy for your outlook on life. Halt your routine for a day in order to plan personally and professionally and prioritize your activities according to the goals you have set. And be aware: As the holidays approach, it will only become harder to do this. Plan your leave now if you are in a “use or lose” situation.

Budget time to do things that you enjoy and reflect aspects of life you are passionate about, and remember, exercise:
    •     Improves health overall, but specifically reduces the symptoms of depression and anxiety.
    •     Is a diversion that enables you to relax due to a change in environment or routine
    •     Serves as an outlet to dissipate emotions.
    •     Enhances your self-concept and confidence in dealing with stressful situations.
    •     Produces biochemical changes that alter psychological states. For example, serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine may help offset states of depression.

Related resources: President’s Fitness Council - www.fitness.gov/mentalhealth.htm.

Back to top

HealthBeat: Bringing Beneficiaries Timely, Relevant TRICARE Benefit Information
Submitted by CAPT Daniel Cline

TRICARE has unveiled HealthBeat, its new electronic beneficiary newsletter, in conjunction with the redesigned TRICARE website. Up-to-date benefit information is combined with sleek graphics to create an e-newsletter, making it easier for beneficiaries to find TRICARE news and information when they need it. This is TRICARE’s first online beneficiary newsletter.

HealthBeat links beneficiaries directly to TRICARE’s most important benefit information. Among its many features, beneficiaries will find the latest TRICARE benefit updates, links to pertinent news releases and articles about TRICARE and the military health system, and the Doctor Is In column.

HealthBeat is located on the My Benefits portal of the redesigned TRICARE website. Beneficiaries do not have to be a subscriber to get HealthBeat; however, they may sign up on the HealthBeat Web page.

TRICARE will send a monthly e-mail to subscribers informing them that the latest e-newsletter has been uploaded to the My Benefits portal of the TRICARE website. The e-mail will include an overview of that issue’s content with a link to the full e-newsletter on the website. Additionally, TRICARE will periodically send HealthBeat news flashes on benefit issues.

To view or subscribe to HealthBeat, beneficiaries may visit www.tricare.mil/HealthBeat/. Beneficiaries may opt-out of receiving the e-newsletter at any time.

Back to top

In need of legal assistance?
Reported by LCDR Maleeka Glover

Officers in Atlanta in need of legal assistance can go to the Office of the Staff Judge Advocate (SJA) headquarters, located at the U.S. Army Forces Command, Fort McPherson, Georgia. The Legal Assistance office provides advice and assistance on personal legal matters that are primarily civil in nature. This includes the preparation of several types of legal memoranda at no cost to the client.

Current Staff

The Legal Assistance Office is staffed during duty hours with qualified attorneys who are either members of the Judge Advocate General's (JAG) Corps or are civilian employees. When you consult with a Legal Assistance attorney, he or she can interview, investigate, advise, and assist you on personal legal matters. Legal Assistance attorneys are not authorized to appear with you as your attorney of record in any court. However, as your legal advisor, your attorney will keep confidential any matters that you disclose to him or her in connection with your legal issues.

Services

The Legal Assistance Office provides a variety of legal services for active duty, retirees, and their family members. The office renders advice and prepares pro se petitions in divorce cases, separation agreements, legitimating, name changes, probate petitions, and custody cases. They also prepare wills, provide estate planning advice, and prepare quit claim deeds. Additionally, they offer assistance in non-support cases. Other commons areas of assistance include credit/debt problems, consumer issues, landlord/tenant problems, and real estate transactions.

Location

The office of the Staff Judge Advocate is located at Fort MacPherson in Van Horn Hall, 1st floor, Bldg 41. The hours are Monday through Friday, 0730 to 1615. Please note that the office closes at 1130 on Wednesdays. For information or appointments, call 404.464.2626.

Back to top

Officers with a Commitment
Submitted by LCDR Robert Williams

The Georgia Adopt-a-Highway program is one of the community service projects that the ACOA has accepted and maintained over the years. ACOA cleans up a section of roadway every quarter i.e., four times a year. Although sometimes we have operated with only a few volunteers, we have never failed to meet this obligation. This is due, in large part, to the commitment of the PHS officers in the Atlanta area.

We “environmentally enhance” two-miles along Ponce De Leon Avenue between Briarcliff and Clifton Roads. It is a major transportation artery to and from the city of Atlanta. We clean up part of co-joined park lands and neighborhoods, which includes three churches. The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) has erected signs noting our sponsorship. These signs are seen by tens of thousands of motorists and passengers throughout the year. It takes many hours for a single person to clean this section, but with at least eight officers we reduce the time down to approximately one hour. Volunteers are encouraged to wear sturdy gloves for sharp objects and appropriate clothing for sun protection. An orange vest with PHS on it is provided for safety as your group walks along sidewalks or through parks.

Upon completion of a roadside clean-up ACOA submits a status report to the GDOT to inform them of any hazardous items found, or of any ongoing hazardous condition. ACOA has completed three of its four required clean-up activities this year. The next scheduled roadside clean-up will be October 13, 2007. This is an ideal family activity as you can all have fun together and contribute to help keep the environment clean. Anyone is welcome, it is a great way to network, and there is a unique fellowship aspect. We encourage all ACOA members to volunteer at least once a year.

Currently, we meet at the parking lot at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints at 1450 Ponce De Leon Avenue, NE, Atlanta, GA (near the Virginia Highlands area) at 0930. This location is centrally located for the two miles along Ponce De Leon Avenue and has plenty of free parking spaces. For volunteer services we generally provide juices, coffee and donuts.

To volunteer, or for additional information, please contact, LCDR Robert L. Williams at 770.488.3341.

Back to top

Attention to the Landing Forces!
From CDC to the USS Peleliu
Submitted by LCDR Ed Dieser and LCDR Aimee Treffiletti

ATTENTION TO THE LANDING FORCES! That was the call we heard over the Iron Nickel’s loudspeaker every morning before we departed for shore, and it usually came around 5:10 am. It meant that it was time to finish gulping down breakfast and high-tail it to the hanger bay for muster. It also meant the beginning of what was sure to be a long, hot, sweaty, but incredibly rewarding day.

We both served for 34 days aboard the USS Peleliu (a.k.a LHA-5, the Iron Nickel), one of the U.S. Navy’s amphibious assault warships. The Iron Nickel was our home away from home full of passage ways (hall ways, a.k.a. p-ways), ladders (stairs), hatches (doors), bulkheads (walls), decks (floors), hooches (offices and 4-person living areas), bunks (beds), and the wardroom (cafeteria), during our participation in the Peleliu Pacific Partnership (3P) humanitarian mission. The 3P mission brought together medical, dental, veterinary, and public health providers from the U.S. uniformed services, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and partner nations, as well as U.S. Navy Seabee engineering/construction units, to work with participating host nations in Southeast Asia and Oceania. On our part of the tour (August 4-September 7), we visited Papua New Guinea (PNG), the Solomon Islands, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands, spending 5 to 10 days at each location.

We were both assigned to the Forward Deployed Preventative Medicine Unit (FDPMU) with Navy personnel based out of Pearl Harbor, HI and San Diego, CA, U.S. Air Force personnel from Eielson Air Force Base, AK, and members of the PNG Defense Force. The PHS officers assigned to FDPMU included two engineers, three environmental health officers, and a preventative medicine doctor. Our colleagues on the FDPMU included an industrial hygienist, two environmental health officers, an entomologist, a microbiologist, and five preventative medicine technicians, making for a robust and capable team.

The days were long. The heat and humidity were often relentless. But the experience was unbelievable. Our assistance focused on the public health needs that the host nations identified, which meant that the work we were doing was meaningful to them. We performed drinking water treatment and distribution system surveys, including microbiological and chemical analyses, conducted environmental health surveys of Internally Displaced Persons camps and local villages, presented environmental and occupational health training, initiated new collaboration between government ministries, and provided consultation on vector mitigation, rain harvesting, water disinfection, and solid, human, and medical waste disposal. Consistent with the PHS’s new mission emphasis in response operations, we also developed an emergency and disaster response plan for Modilon Hospital, the main hospital in the Madang Province of PNG. This plan may even become a template for all of the provincial hospitals in PNG.

In addition to these concrete, hands-on activities, we built relationships with our sister services and host nations by simply sharing experiences. These included both the professional aspect (e.g., talking about the ins and outs of workplace inspections), and the personal (e.g., sharing fresh coconut juice on a hot day). The impact of these exchanges often seemed to far outweigh the official written reports from our mission.

As we were saying our goodbyes to the Navy leaders of our team, the Officer in Charge of the FDPMU told us that he would not want to participate in a mission like this again without the US Public Health Service. Knowing that our efforts and successes not only positively impacted our host nations, but also helped to pave the way for future PHS involvement in these humanitarian missions, is one of our greatest rewards. We encourage officers to volunteer for these challenging, yet overwhelmingly rewarding assignments in the future. But be forewarned: you just may have to wait in line behind us.